A typical Sudoku puzzle

The same puzzle with solution numbers marked in red

Sudoku (数独, sūdoku^?, すうどく)  listen (help·info); English pronunciation: /suːˈdoʊkuː/ soo-DOH-koo is a logic-based,^[1][2] combinatorial^[3] number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid (also called "boxes", "blocks", "regions", or "sub-squares") contains all of the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid, which typically has a unique solution.

Completed puzzles are always a type of Latin square with an additional constraint on the contents of individual regions. For example, the same single integer may not appear twice in the same 9×9 playing board row or column or in any of the nine 3×3 subregions of the 9×9 playing board.^[4]

The puzzle was popularized in 1986 by the Japanese puzzle company Nikoli, under the name Sudoku, meaning single number.^[5] It became an international hit in 2005.^[6]

History[link]

From La France newspaper, July 6, 1895

Number puzzles appeared in newspapers in the late 19th century, when French puzzle setters began experimenting with removing numbers from magic squares. Le Siècle, a Paris-based daily, published a partially completed 9×9 magic square with 3×3 sub-squares on November 19, 1892.^[7] It was not a Sudoku because it contained double-digit numbers and required arithmetic rather than logic to solve, but it shared key characteristics: each row, column and sub-square added up to the same number.

On July 6, 1895, Le Siècle's rival, La France, refined the puzzle so that it was almost a modern Sudoku. It simplified the 9×9 magic square puzzle so that each row, column and broken diagonals contained only the numbers 1–9, but did not mark the sub-squares. Although they are unmarked, each 3×3 sub-square does indeed comprise the numbers 1–9 and the additional constraint on the broken diagonals leads to only one solution.^[8]

These weekly puzzles were a feature of French newspapers such as L'Echo de Paris for about a decade but disappeared about the time of World War I.^[9]

According to Will Shortz, the modern Sudoku was most likely designed anonymously by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor from Connersville, Indiana, and first published in 1979 by Dell Magazines as Number Place (the earliest known examples of modern Sudoku). Garns's name was always present on the list of contributors in issues of Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games that included Number Place, and was always absent from issues that did not.^[10] He died in 1989 before getting a chance to see his creation as a worldwide phenomenon.^[10] It is unclear if Garns was familiar with any of the French newspapers listed above.

The puzzle was introduced in Japan by Nikoli in the paper Monthly Nikolist in April 1984^[10] as Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru (数字は独身に限る^?), which also can be translated as "the digits must be single" or "the digits are limited to one occurrence." (In Japanese, dokushin means an "unmarried person".) At a later date, the name was abbreviated to Sudoku (數獨) by Maki Kaji (鍜治 真起, Kaji Maki^?), taking only the first kanji of compound words to form a shorter version.^[10] In 1986, Nikoli introduced two innovations: the number of givens was restricted to no more than 32, and puzzles became "symmetrical" (meaning the givens were distributed in rotationally symmetric cells). It is now published in mainstream Japanese periodicals, such as the Asahi Shimbun.

The Times of London began featuring Sudoku in 2004.^[11]

Variants[link]

A nonomino or Jigsaw Sudoku puzzle, as seen in the Sunday Telegraph

Solution numbers in red for above puzzle

Although the 9×9 grid with 3×3 regions is by far the most common, many variations exist. Sample puzzles can be 4×4 grids with 2×2 regions; 5×5 grids with pentomino regions have been published under the name Logi-5; the World Puzzle Championship has featured a 6×6 grid with 2×3 regions and a 7×7 grid with six heptomino regions and a disjoint region. Larger grids are also possible. The Times offers a 12×12-grid Dodeka sudoku with 12 regions of 4×3 squares. Dell regularly publishes 16×16 Number Place Challenger puzzles (the 16×16 variant often uses 1 through G rather than the 0 through F used in hexadecimal). Nikoli offers 25×25 Sudoku the Giant behemoths. Sudoku-zilla,^[12] a 100×100-grid was published in print in 2010.

Another common variant is to add limits on the placement of numbers beyond the usual row, column, and box requirements. Often the limit takes the form of an extra "dimension"; the most common is to require the numbers in the main diagonals of the grid also to be unique. The aforementioned Number Place Challenger puzzles are all of this variant, as are the Sudoku X puzzles in the Daily Mail, which use 6×6 grids. The Sudoku X4 family of iPhone/iPad apps combine this "X" varation with the Sunday Telegraph-style interlocking colored nonomino or Jigsaw shapes of nine spaces each instead of the 3x3 regions, providing a total of four different kinds of puzzles.

Mini Sudoku[link]

A variant named "Mini Sudoku" appears in the American newspaper USA Today and elsewhere, which is played on a 6×6 grid with 3×2 regions. The object is the same as standard Sudoku, but the puzzle only uses the numbers 1 through 6. A similar form, for younger solvers of puzzles, called "The Junior Sudoku", has appeared in some newspapers, such as some editions of The Daily Mail.

Cross Sums Sudoku[link]

Another variant is the combination of Sudoku with Kakuro on a 9×9 grid, called Cross Sums Sudoku, in which clues are given in terms of cross sums. The clues can also be given by cryptic alphametics in which each letter represents a single digit from 0 to 9. An example is NUMBER+NUMBER=KAKURO which has a unique solution 186925+186925=373850. Another example is SUDOKU=IS×FUNNY whose solution is 426972=34×12558.

Killer Sudoku[link]

A Killer Sudoku puzzle

Solution for puzzle to the left

The Killer Sudoku variant combines elements of Sudoku and Kakuro.

Alphabetical Sudoku[link]

A Wordoku puzzle

Solution in red for puzzle to the left

Alphabetical variations have emerged, sometimes called Wordoku; there is no functional difference in the puzzle unless the letters spell something. Some variants, such as in the TV Guide, include a word reading along a main diagonal, row, or column once solved; determining the word in advance can be viewed as a solving aid. A Wordoku might contain other words, other than the main word.

Hypersudoku[link]

Hypersudoku puzzle

Solution numbers for puzzle to the left

Hypersudoku is one of the most popular variants. It is published by newspapers and magazines around the world and is also known as "NRC Sudoku," "Windoku," "Hyper-Sudoku" and "4 Square Sudoku." The layout is identical to a normal Sudoku, but with additional interior areas defined in which the numbers 1 to 9 must appear. The solving algorithm is slightly different from the normal Sudoku puzzles because of the leverage on the overlapping squares. This overlap gives the player more information to logically reduce the possibilities in the remaining squares. The approach to playing is similar to Sudoku but with possibly more emphasis on scanning the squares and overlap rather than columns and rows.

Puzzles constructed from multiple Sudoku grids are common. Five 9×9 grids which overlap at the corner regions in the shape of a quincunx is known in Japan as Gattai 5 (five merged) Sudoku. In The Times, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald this form of puzzle is known as Samurai SuDoku. The Baltimore Sun and the Toronto Star publish a puzzle of this variant (titled High Five) in their Sunday edition. Often, no givens are to be found in overlapping regions. Sequential grids, as opposed to overlapping, are also published, with values in specific locations in grids needing to be transferred to others.

Str8ts shares the Sudoku requirement of uniqueness in the rows and columns but the third constraint is very different. Str8ts uses black cells (some with clue numbers) to divide the board into compartments. These must be filled with a set of numbers that form a "straight," like the poker hand. A straight is a set of numbers with no gaps in them, such as "4,3,6,5"—and the order can be non-sequential. 9×9 is the traditional size but with suitable placement of black cells any size board is possible.

An example of Greater Than Sudoku

A tabletop version of Sudoku can be played with a standard 81-card Set deck (see Set game). A three-dimensional Sudoku puzzle was invented by Dion Church and published in the Daily Telegraph in May 2005. The Times also publishes a three-dimensional version under the name Tredoku. There is a Sudoku version of the Rubik's Cube named Sudoku Cube.

There are many other variants. Some are different shapes in the arrangement of overlapping 9×9 grids, such as butterfly, windmill, or flower.^[13] Others vary the logic for solving the grid. One of these is Greater Than Sudoku. In this a 3×3 grid of the Sudoku is given with 12 symbols of Greater Than (>) or Less Than (<) on the common line of the two adjacent numbers.^[10] Another variant on the logic of solution is Clueless Sudoku, in which nine 9×9 Sudoku grids are themselves placed in a three-by-three array. The center cell in each 3×3 grid of all nine puzzles is left blank and form a tenth Sudoku puzzle without any cell completed; hence, "clueless".^[13]

Duidoku[link]

Duidoku is a two player variant of Sudoku created by Kaushik Basu, the founder of Sudoku, himself. It is played on a 4X4 board i.e 16 squares or four clusters each containing four squares.

The game is followed using the rules of Sudoku. Four numbers are used,and each player consecutively places one number out of the four such that he or she makes no illegal moves. The first player to make an illegal move loses.^[14] An online version of this game can be played at a website created by Michael Rudd Zwolinski.^[15]

Another version of Duidoku, placed on a 9X9 board with 81 counters has been suggested by Kaushik Basu and known as Ultimate Duidoku.

Mathematics of Sudoku[link]

A completed Sudoku grid is a special type of Latin square with the additional property of no repeated values in any of the 9 blocks of contiguous 3×3 cells. The relationship between the two theories is now completely known, after it was proven that a first-order formula that does not mention blocks (also called boxes or regions) is valid for Sudoku if and only if it is valid for Latin Squares (this property is trivially true for the axioms and it can be extended to any formula).^[16]

The number of classic 9×9 Sudoku solution grids is 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 (sequence A107739 in OEIS), or approximately 6.67×10²¹. This is roughly 1.2×10⁻⁶ times the number of 9×9 Latin squares.^[17] Various other grid sizes have also been enumerated—see the main article for details. The number of essentially different solutions, when symmetries such as rotation, reflection, permutation and relabelling are taken into account, was shown to be just 5,472,730,538^[18] (sequence A109741 in OEIS).

The maximum number of givens provided while still not rendering a unique solution is four short of a full grid (77); if two instances of two numbers each are missing from cells which occupy the corners of an orthogonal rectangle, and exactly two of these cells are within one region, there are two ways the numbers can be assigned. Since this applies to Latin squares in general, most variants of Sudoku have the same maximum. The inverse problem—the fewest givens that render a solution unique—was recently proven to be 17.^[19] A number of valid puzzles with 17 givens have been found for the standard variation without a symmetry constraint, by Japanese puzzle enthusiasts,^[20][21] and 18 with the givens in rotationally symmetric cells. Over 48,000 examples of Sudoku puzzles with 17 givens resulting in a unique solution are known.^{[citation needed]}

In 2010 mathematicians of the University of Southern California showed that the arrangement of numbers in Sudoku puzzles have greater Shannon entropy than the number arrangements in randomly generated 9×9 matrices. This is because the rules of Sudoku exclude some random arrangements that have an innate symmetry.^[22]

Recent popularity[link]

In 1997, New Zealander and retired Hong Kong judge Wayne Gould, then in his early 50s, saw a partly completed puzzle in a Japanese bookshop. Over six years he developed a computer program to produce puzzles quickly. Knowing that British newspapers have a long history of publishing crosswords and other puzzles, he promoted Sudoku to The Times in Britain, which launched it on November 12, 2004 (calling it Su Doku). The first letter to The Times regarding Su Doku was published the following day on November 13 from Ian Payn of Brentford, complaining that the puzzle had caused him to miss his stop on the tube.^[23]

The rapid rise of Sudoku in Britain from relative obscurity to a front-page feature in national newspapers attracted commentary in the media and parody (such as when The Guardian's G2 section advertised itself as the first newspaper supplement with a Sudoku grid on every page).^[24] Recognizing the different psychological appeals of easy and difficult puzzles, The Times introduced both side by side on June 20, 2005. From July 2005, Channel 4 included a daily Sudoku game in their Teletext service. On August 2, the BBC's program guide Radio Times featured a weekly Super Sudoku which features a 16×16 grid.

In the United States, the first newspaper to publish a Sudoku puzzle by Wayne Gould was The Conway Daily Sun (New Hampshire), in 2004.^[25]

The world's first live TV Sudoku show, Sudoku Live, was a puzzle contest first broadcast on July 1, 2005 on Sky One. It was presented by Carol Vorderman. Nine teams of nine players (with one celebrity in each team) representing geographical regions competed to solve a puzzle. Each player had a hand-held device for entering numbers corresponding to answers for four cells. Phil Kollin of Winchelsea, England was the series grand prize winner taking home over £23,000 over a series of games. The audience at home was in a separate interactive competition, which was won by Hannah Withey of Cheshire.

Later in 2005, the BBC launched SUDO-Q, a game show that combines Sudoku with general knowledge. However, it uses only 4×4 and 6×6 puzzles. Four seasons were produced, before the show ended in 2007.

In 2006, a Sudoku website published songwriter Peter Levy's Sudoku tribute song,^[26] but quickly had to take down the mp3 due to heavy traffic. British and Australian radio picked up the song, which is to feature in a British-made Sudoku documentary. The Japanese Embassy also nominated the song for an award, with Levy doing talks with Sony in Japan to release the song as a single.^[27]

Sudoku software is very popular on PCs, websites, and mobile phones. It comes with many distributions of Linux. Software has also been released on video game consoles, such as the Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, the Game Boy Advance, Xbox Live Arcade, the Nook e-book reader, Kindle Fire tablet, several iPod models, and the iPhone. In fact, just two weeks after Apple Inc. debuted the online App Store within its iTunes store on July 11, 2008, there were already nearly 30 different Sudoku games, created by various software developers, specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch. One of the most popular video games featuring Sudoku is Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!. Critically and commercially well-received, it generated particular praise for its Sudoku implementation^[28][29][30] and sold more than 8 million copies worldwide.^[31] Due to its popularity, Nintendo made a second Brain Age game titled Brain Age², which has over 100 new Sudoku puzzles and other activities.

In June 2008 an Australian drugs-related jury trial costing over A$1 million was aborted when it was discovered that five of the twelve jurors had been playing Sudoku instead of listening to evidence.^[32]

Competitions[link]

• The first World Sudoku Championship was held in Lucca, Italy, from March 10–12, 2006. The winner was Jana Tylová of the Czech Republic.^[33] The competition included numerous variants.^[34]
• The second World Sudoku Championship was held in Prague from March 28 – April 1, 2007.^[35] The individual champion was Thomas Snyder of the USA. The team champion was Japan.^[36]
• The third World Sudoku Championship was held in Goa, India, from April 14–16, 2008. Thomas Snyder repeated as the individual overall champion, and also won the first ever Classic Trophy (a subset of the competition counting only classic Sudoku). The Czech Republic won the team competition.^[37]
• The fourth World Sudoku Championship was held in Žilina, Slovakia, from April 24–27, 2009. After past champion Thomas Snyder of USA won the general qualification, Jan Mrozowski of Poland emerged from a 36-competitor playoff to become the new World Sudoku Champion. Host nation Slovakia emerged as the top team in a separate competition of three-membered squads.^[38]
• The fifth World Sudoku Championship was held in Philadelphia, USA from April 29 – May 2, 2010. Jan Mrozowski of Poland successfully defended his world title in the individual competition while Germany won a separate team event. The puzzles were written by Thomas Snyder and Wei-Hwa Huang, both past US Sudoku champions.^[39]
• In the United States, The Philadelphia Inquirer Sudoku National Championship has been held three times, each time offering a $10,000 prize to the advanced division winner and a spot on the U.S. National Sudoku Team traveling to the world championships. Puzzlemaster Will Shortz has served as tournament host. The winners of the event were Thomas Snyder (2007),^[40] Wei-Hwa Huang (2008), and Tammy McLeod (2009).^[41] In the most recent event, the third place finalist in the advanced division, Eugene Varshavsky, performed quite poorly onstage after setting a very fast qualifying time on paper, which caught the attention of organizers and competitors including past champion Thomas Snyder who requested organizers reconsider his results due to a suspicion of cheating.^[42] Following an investigation and a retest of Varshavsky, the organizers disqualified him and awarded Chris Narrikkattu third place.^[43]

See also[link]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Delahaye, Jean-Paul, "The Science Behind Sudoku", Scientific American magazine, June 2006.
• Kim, Scott, "The Science of Sudoku", 2006
• Provan, J. Scott, "Sudoku: Strategy Versus Structure", American Mathematical Monthly, October 2009. Published also as a University of North Carolina technical report UNC/STOR/08/04, 2008.

External links[link]

• Sudoku at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of Sudoku links
• 'Father of Sudoku' puzzles next move (BBC)

James Gary McGuire (born 30 September 1938) is an English former association football goalkeeper who played in the Football League for Torquay United.^[1] He was born in Campsall, in the parish of Norton, Doncaster, Yorkshire.

McGuire started playing football as a 16-year-old with West Ham United, before going on to play for Walthamstow Avenue, with whom he won the 1961 FA Amateur Cup. Described in the July 1961 edition of Charles Buchan's Football Monthly as "the most improved goalkeeper in the Isthmian League",^[2] McGuire played for the Isthmian League representative side that visited Kampala as part of the Ugandan Independence celebrations. He then spent three years in Australia,^[3] returning to England in February 1966 to join Torquay United from Hakoah. He took his chance to replace Terry Adlington when he was out of the side with a broken finger, and helped the club to promotion from the Fourth Division.^[4] He played 32 first-team games for Torquay before leaving league football, playing in turn for non-league sides Bedford Town and Hastings United.

McGuire worked in the City of London as an equities trader until he retired in 2003.^[3]

References[link]

This biographical article related to an English football goalkeeper is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Thomas Snyder (born c. 1980)^[1] is an American puzzle creator and world-champion sudoku solver. He writes a puzzle blog as Dr. Sudoku.^[2]

Early life and education[link]

Thomas Snyder grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York.^[3] He attended Amherst Central High School before getting degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University^[3] and doing post-doctoral work at Stanford University's bioengineering department.^[1]

Puzzle championships[link]

• World Sudoku Champion 2007, 2008 & 2011^[1][4]
• U.S. Sudoku Champion 2007 ^[5]
• U.S. Puzzle Champion 2006-2010^[6]

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c} Lisa Fernandez (May 9, 2008). "Solving puzzles is in sudoku champ's genes". San Jose Mercury News. 
2. ^ "The Art of Puzzles". http://motris.livejournal.com/. Retrieved November 23, 2010. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "motris - User Profile". http://motris.livejournal.com/profile. Retrieved November 23, 2010. 
4. ^ "worldpuzzle.org". http://www.worldpuzzle.org/. Retrieved November 14, 2011. 
5. ^ "Meet the official sudoku champ". Chicago Tribune: p. 10. October 22, 2007. 
6. ^ "wpc.puzzles.com". http://wpc.puzzles.com/history/index.htm. Retrieved February 18, 2011. 

This United States biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Wolfgang Schäuble
Minister of Finance
Incumbent
Assumed office 28 October 2009
Chancellor	Angela Merkel
Preceded by	Peer Steinbrück
Minister of the Interior
In office 22 November 2005 – 27 October 2009
Chancellor	Angela Merkel
Preceded by	Otto Schily
Succeeded by	Thomas de Maizière
In office 21 April 1989 – 26 November 1991
Chancellor	Helmut Kohl
Preceded by	Friedrich Zimmermann
Succeeded by	Rudolf Seiters
Chief of the Chancellery Minister for Special Affairs
In office 15 November 1984 – 21 April 1989
Chancellor	Helmut Kohl
Preceded by	Waldemar Schreckenberger
Succeeded by	Rudolf Seiters
Personal details
Born	(1942-09-18) 18 September 1942 (age 69) Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Political party	Christian Democratic Union
Spouse(s)	Ingeborg Schäuble
Children	4
Alma mater	University of Freiburg University of Hamburg
Website	Official website

Wolfgang Schäuble [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ ˈʃɔʏblə] (born 18 September 1942) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), currently serving as the Federal Minister of Finance in the Second Cabinet Merkel.

From 1984 to 1991 he was a member of Helmut Kohl's cabinet, first as Federal Minister for Special Affairs of Germany and Chief of the Chancellery and then as Federal Minister of the Interior. Between 1991 and 2000, he was chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the parliament, and from 1998 to 2000 also CDU party chairman. He served again as Federal Minister of the Interior in the First Cabinet Merkel from 2005 to 2009.

Education and career[link]

Schäuble was born in Freiburg im Breisgau as the son of a tax finance advisor. After completing his Abitur in 1961, Schäuble studied law and economics in Freiburg im Breisgau and Hamburg, which he completed in 1966 and 1970 by passing the First and Second State Examinations respectively, becoming a fully qualified lawyer.

In 1971 Schäuble obtained his doctorate in law, with a dissertation called "The public accountant's professional legal situation within accountancy firms".

He entered the tax administration of the state of Baden-Württemberg, eventually becoming a senior administration officer in the Freiburg tax office.

Subsequently Schäuble became a practising registered lawyer at the district court of Offenburg, from 1978 to 1984.

Family[link]

Schäuble has been married to economist Ingeborg Schäuble since 1969. They have four children: three daughters Christine, Juliane and Anna, and one son Hans-Jörg. His brother Thomas Schäuble is a former Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg, and has been executive chairman of the Baden-Württemberg state brewery "Rothaus" since 2004.

Political involvement[link]

Schäuble's political career began in 1961 with him joining the Junge Union ("Young Union"), the youth division of the CDU. During his studies he served as chairman of the Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten (Association of Christian-Democrat Students, RCDS), in Hamburg and Freiburg. In 1965 Schäuble also became a member of the CDU. From 1969 to 1972 he was district chairman of the Junge Union in South Baden. From 1976 to 1984 he served as chairman of the CDU National Committee for Sport.

After the CDU was defeated in the 1998 federal election, Schäuble became chairman of the CDU. He gave up this post in 2000 in the wake of the party financing scandal, over the acceptance of cash donation over DM 100,000 contributed by the arms dealer and lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber back in 1994. Schäuble's successor was Angela Merkel.

Member of Parliament[link]

Schäuble has been a member of the Bundestag since 1972. From 1981 to 1984 he was parliamentary whip of the CDU/CSU coalition and in November 1991 he became the chairman of the coalition. However, Schäuble gave up this position as well in 2000, as another consequence of the financing scandal. Since October 2002 Schäuble has been deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU.

Schäuble has always been elected to the Bundestag by means of winning an electorate seat, rather than through a list placing in Germany’s system of proportional political representation. At the 2005 federal election he received 50.5% of all direct votes cast within his electoral district No. 285 in Offenburg, slightly lower than the 52.2% he received at the 2002 election.

Public office[link]

1989: Wolfgang Schäuble (front centre), German Federal Minister of the Interior

On 15 November 1984 Schäuble was appointed Minister for Special Tasks and head of the Chancellery by Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In this capacity he was put in charge of the preparations for the first official state visit of Erich Honecker, Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), in 1987.

In a cabinet reshuffle Schäuble was made Minister of the Interior on 21 April 1989. In this role he also led the negotiations on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany for reunification with the GDR in 1990. He is now Minister of Finance.

In the 1990s Schäuble was one of the most popular politicians in Germany and there was constant speculation that he would replace Kohl as Chancellor, who lost more and more of his popularity.^[1] In 1997 Helmut Kohl stated that Schäuble was his desired candidate to succeed him, but he didn’t want to hand over power until 2002 when the European monetary union would be completed with the introduction of the Euro. However, as the CDU/CSU lost the 1998 election, Schäuble never became Chancellor.

After Eberhard Diepgen was voted out as mayor of Berlin, Schäuble was in talks to be the top candidate for the early election on 21 October 2001, but was rejected by the Berlin branch of the CDU in favour of Frank Steffel.

Some quarters of the CDU and CSU wanted to put Schäuble forward as their candidate for the office of German President, the largely ceremonial head of state, at the beginning of March 2004, due to his extensive political experience. In spite of support from the Premiers of Bavaria (Edmund Stoiber (CSU)) and Hesse (Roland Koch (CDU)), Schäuble did not receive the party’s nomination in the end because CDU leader Angela Merkel, other CDU politicians and the liberal FDP party spoke out against him. This was because the election contributions scandal involving Schäuble that first came to light in late 1999 had never been entirely resolved.

In November 2005, Schäuble once again became Federal Minister of the Interior, this time in the grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In October 2009, Schäuble became Federal Minister of Finance.

Political views[link]

In 1999 Schäuble initiated a CDU/CSU petition campaign against the reform of German citizenship law under the slogan "Integration: yes — double citizenship: no".

During the Iraq War in 2003 Schäuble, in contrast to many German politicians, strongly defended the United States' decision to invade Iraq.

He accused the then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of lacking an appropriate historical conscience, because he accepted alleged human rights violations by the Russian Government without criticism.

Schäuble is also of the view that Europe's problem is not the European Union, but rather certain national governments that cannot resist the temptation to make the EU and Europe the scapegoat for their own national problems. Examples pointed out by Schäuble include the EU's Stability and Growth Pact, and the Ministry of Finance's view that the introduction of the Euro would damage the German economy.

In March 2007, Schäuble said in an interview that the application of presumption of innocence should not be relevant for the authorization of counter-terrorist operations.^[2]

Later that same year Schäuble proposed the introduction of legislation that would allow the German Federal Government to carry out targeted killing of terrorists, as well as outlaw the use of the Internet and cell phones for people suspected of being terrorist sympathizers.^[3]

On 27 February 2008, he called on all European newspapers to print the Muhammad cartoons with the explanation: "We also think they're pathetic, but the use of press freedom is no reason to resort to violence."^[4]

In July 2009, Schäuble said in an interview that Berlin would have to "clarify whether our constitutional state is sufficient for confronting new threats."^[5][6] He said that the legal problems his office had to struggle with "extend all the way to extreme cases such as so-called targeted killing ... Imagine someone knew what cave Osama bin Laden is sitting in. A remote-controlled missile could then be fired in order to kill him."^[5][6] The interviewer said: "Germany's federal government would probably send a public prosecutor there first, to arrest bin Laden."^[5][6] Schäuble responded: "And the Americans would execute him with a missile, and most people would say: 'thank God'."^[5][6]

On November 21, 2011 Schäuble said the Euro would emerge stronger from the current crisis, thus leaving Great Britain on the sidelines unless it signed up. He said Great Britain would be forced to join the Eurozone faster than some in the UK thought.^[7]

Criticism[link]

Criticism of Schäuble centers on his law and order politics, especially in the field of counter-terrorism, for which he is denounced by some civil rights activists. Vocal opponents include the open-source software community.^[8] The latest decisions of his ministry have led to a campaign dubbed Stasi 2.0 by its initiators, claiming intentional resemblance to the East German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.^[9]

Controversy was sparked by Schäuble's recommendation in a 2007 interview of a book by Otto Depenheuer, who defended the Guantanamo Bay detention camp as a "legally permissible response in the fight of constitutional civilisation against the barbarity of terrorism".^[10]

As a protest against his support for the increasing use of biometric data, the hacker group Chaos Computer Club published one of Schäuble's fingerprints in the March 2008 edition of its magazine Datenschleuder. The magazine also included the print on a film that readers could use to fool fingerprint readers.^[11]

In November 2008, a bill giving the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) more authority failed when some states abstained from the vote in the Bundesrat, the legislative representative of the states. Subsequently, Schäuble suggested changing Bundesrat's voting procedures to discount abstention votes from the total. Many ministers in the opposition criticized his proposal, and some called for his resignation.^[12][13]

In February 2009, Schäuble's homepage was hacked due to a security flaw in the TYPO3 CMS and his non-secure password gewinner ("winner"). The hack consisted of a defacement that placed a large, easily visible link on his front page to the homepage of the German Working Group on Data Retention.^[14]

In January, 2012, the British opponent of the EU Ambrose Evans-Pritchard advanced the "idle hunch" that, during the year, chancellor Merkel would "quietly oust arch-Europhile ... Schäuble and let the [ Euro-]project die, always pretending otherwise".^[15]

Assassination attempt[link]

On 12 October 1990, Schäuble was the target of an assassination attempt by Dieter Kaufmann,^[16] who fired three shots at Schäuble after an election campaign event in Oppenau. He injured a bodyguard, and severely injured Schäuble's spinal cord and face. Schäuble has been paralysed and has used a wheelchair ever since. The assassin was declared mentally ill by the judges, and committed to a clinic because of psychoneurosis.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wolfgang Schäuble

• Germany's New Government: Wolfgang Schauble – The Comeback of United Germany's Architect
• Wolfgang Schäuble's homepage (German)
• Biography of Wolfgang Schäuble at the German Historical Museum (German)
• Biography of Wolfgang Schäuble at the Bundestag (German parliament) website (German)
• Wolfgang Schäuble: "Muslims Should Feel at Home in Germany"

v t e The First Merkel Cabinet, 22 November 2005 – 28 October 2009 Franz Müntefering/Olaf Scholz (since 22 Nov 2007) (SPD) | Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) | Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) | Brigitte Zypries (SPD) | Peer Steinbrück (SPD) | Michael Glos/Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (since 10 Feb 2009) (CSU) | Horst Seehofer/Ilse Aigner (since 31 Oct 2008) (CSU) | Franz Josef Jung (CDU) | Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) | Ulla Schmidt (SPD) | Wolfgang Tiefensee (SPD) | Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) | Annette Schavan (CDU) | Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (SPD) | Thomas de Maizière (CDU)

v t e The Second Cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel (2009–present) Vice-Chancellor Guido Westerwelle (2009–2011)  · Philipp Rösler (2011–present) Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Guido Westerwelle (2009–present) Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière (2009–2011)  · Hans-Peter Friedrich (2011–present) Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (2009–present) Federal Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble (2009–present) Federal Minister of Economics and Technology Rainer Brüderle (2009–2011)  · Philipp Rösler (2011–present) Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Franz Josef Jung (2009)  · Ursula von der Leyen (2009–present) Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture Ilse Aigner (2009–present) Federal Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (2009–2011)  · Thomas de Maizière (2011–present) Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Women and Youth Ursula von der Leyen (2009)  · Kristina Schröder (2009–present) Federal Minister of Health Philipp Rösler (2009–2011)  · Daniel Bahr (2011–present) Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs Peter Ramsauer (2009–present) Federal Minister for the Environment Norbert Röttgen (2009–2012)  · Peter Altmaier (2012–present) Federal Minister of Education and Research Annette Schavan (2009–present) Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Dirk Niebel (2009–present) Federal Minister for Special Tasks, Head of the Chancellery Ronald Pofalla (2009–present)

v t e Finance Ministers of Germany German Empire (1871–1918) Adolf von Scholz Franz Emil Emanuel von Burchard Karl Rudolf Jacobi Baron Helmuth von Maltzahn Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner Max Franz Guido von Thielmann Baron Hermann von Stengel Reinhold Sydow Adolf Wermuth Hermann Kühn Karl Helfferich Count Siegfried von Roedern Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Eugen Schiffer Bernhard Dernburg Matthias Erzberger Joseph Wirth Andreas Hermes Rudolf Hilferding Hans Luther Otto von Schlieben Hans Luther Peter Reinhold Heinrich Köhler Rudolf Hilferding Paul Moldenhauer Heinrich Brüning Hermann R. Dietrich Third Reich (1933–1945) Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk East Germany (1949–1990) Hans Loch Willy Rumpf Siegfried Böhm Werner Schmieder Ernst Höfner Uta Nickel Walter Romberg Werner Skowron Federal Republic of Germany (1949–) Fritz Schäffer Franz Etzel Heinz Starke Rolf Dahlgrün Kurt Schmücker Franz Josef Strauss Alex Möller Karl Schiller Helmut Schmidt Hans Apel Hans Matthöfer Manfred Lahnstein Gerhard Stoltenberg Theodor Waigel Oskar Lafontaine Hans Eichel Peer Steinbrück Wolfgang Schäuble

v t e Interior Ministers of Germany Imperial Interior Secretaries (1871–1918) Karl Hofmann Karl Heinrich von Boetticher Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg Clemens von Delbrück Karl Helfferich Max Wallraf Karl Trimborn Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Friedrich Ebert Hugo Preuß Eduard David Erich Koch-Weser Georg Gradnauer Adolf Köster Rudolf Oeser Wilhelm Sollmann Karl Jarres Martin Schiele Otto Geßler Wilhelm Külz Walter von Keudell Carl Severing Joseph Wirth Wilhelm Groener Wilhelm von Gayl Franz Bracht Nazi Germany (1933–1945) Wilhelm Frick Heinrich Himmler Paul Giesler Wilhelm Stuckart German Democratic Republic (1949–1990) Karl Steinhoff Karl Maron Friedrich Dickel Lothar Ahrendt Peter Michael Diestel Federal Republic of Germany (1949–) Gustav Heinemann Robert Lehr Gerhard Schröder Hermann Höcherl Paul Lücke Ernst Benda Hans-Dietrich Genscher Werner Maihofer Gerhart Baum Jürgen Schmude Friedrich Zimmermann Wolfgang Schäuble Rudolf Seiters Manfred Kanther Otto Schily Wolfgang Schäuble Thomas de Maizière Hans-Peter Friedrich

v t e Heads of the German Chancellery Franz-Josef Wuermeling · Otto Lenz · Hans Globke · Ludger Westrick · Werner Knieper · Karl Carstens · Horst Ehmke · Horst Grabert · Manfred Schüler · Manfred Lahnstein · Gerhard Konow · Waldemar Schreckenberger · Wolfgang Schäuble · Rudolf Seiters · Friedrich Bohl · Bodo Hombach · Frank-Walter Steinmeier · Thomas de Maizière · Ronald Pofalla